Written by Steven Hansen
The U.S. new cases 7-day rolling average are 2.2 % LOWER than the 7-day rolling average one week ago and U.S. deaths due to coronavirus are now 18.4 % LOWER than the rolling average one week ago. Today’s posts include:
- U.S. Coronavirus New Cases are 58,856
- U.S. Coronavirus deaths are at 1,177
- U.S. Coronavirus immunizations have been administered to 33.8 % of the population
- The 7-day rolling average rate of growth of the pandemic shows new cases worsened and deaths worsened
- Multiple Variants Can ‘Escape’ Vaccines
- American’s on the right and left are misinterpreting scientific evidence in systematic ways
- European regulator says AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine is ‘safe and effective’ but link to rare blood clots cannot be ruled out
- Biden to send surplus AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Mexico, Canada
- Is The Asthma Inhaler Effective for Respiratory Viruses?
- Fauci clashes with Rand Paul over masks
- BioFire Respiratory Panel 2.1 is the First COVID-19 Diagnostic Test Granted Marketing Authorization Using the De Novo Review Pathway
- The World Health Organization is working on “a smart digital certificate,
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Hospitalizations Are The Only Accurate Gauge
Hospitalizations historically appear to be little affected by weekends or holidays. The hospitalization growth rate trend is improving.
source: https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/covidnet/COVID19_3.html
Historically, hospitalization growth follows new case growth by one to two weeks.
As an analyst, I use the rate of growth to determine the trend. But, the size of the pandemic is growing in terms of real numbers – and if the rate of growth does not become negative – the pandemic will overwhelm all resources.
The graph below shows the rate of growth relative to the growth a week earlier updated through today [note that negative numbers mean the rolling averages are LOWER than the rolling averages one week ago]. As one can see, the rate of growth for new cases peaked in early December 2020 for Thanksgiving, and early January 2021 for end of year holidays – and it now shows that the coronavirus effect is now shrinking.
In the scheme of things, new cases decline first, followed by hospitalizations, and then deaths.
Will The New Variants Cause The Next Spike?
Maybe and maybe not. It all depends on vaccinations:
- the more people that are vaccinated reduces the pool of people that can be infected. Today we have removed over 33 % of the population from being infected which theoretically should reduce the infection rate by 33 % [it is unproven whether the vaccines prevent a vaccinated person from being a carrier of the virus even though showing no signs]. If the vaccines are shown to stop transmission, then in theory it would reduce the infection rate by double the percent vaccinated [in this case you prevent your own infection and do not pass it along to another].
- it is also unknown what the effective rate of the current vaccines is against mutations that seem to appear almost daily. As an example, if the effective rate drops to 60%, it means the 33 % reduction in the infection rate discussed above is almost cut in half. The South African and Brazilian variant is reported somewhat immune to the current vaccines.
- The pandemic should be over immediately if everyone could be vaccinated today. The problem is that every day brings a new mutation (which would not appear if the pandemic was stopped). The longer the immunization process takes – the more ineffective the vaccine will become.
- It is not clear whether the vaccine prevents those vaccinated from spreading the virus. It seems to be well documented that it normally stops the virus from taking hold and when it does not – the infection is mild.
Coronavirus News You May Have Missed
Too hot … and too cold – New York Times
Americans on the right half of the political spectrum have tended to underplay the risk of Covid-19. They have been less willing to wear masks or avoid indoor gatherings and have been more hesitant to get vaccinated.
These attitudes are part of a larger pattern in which American conservatives are often skeptical of public-health warnings from scientists — on climate change, air pollution, gun violence, school lunches and more. In the case of Covid, Republican politicians and media figures have encouraged risky behavior by making false statements about the virus.
To many liberals, Covid has become another example of the modern Republican Party’s hostility to facts and evidence. And that charge certainly has some truth to it. Yet the particular story with Covid is also more complicated — because conservatives aren’t the only ones misinterpreting scientific evidence in systematic ways. Americans on the left half of the political spectrum are doing it, too.
That’s a central finding from a survey of 35,000 Americans by Gallup and Franklin Templeton. It finds that both liberals and conservatives suffer from misperceptions about the pandemic — in opposite directions. “Republicans consistently underestimate risks, while Democrats consistently overestimate them,” Jonathan Rothwell, Gallup’s principal economist, and Sonal Desai, a Franklin Templeton executive, write.
The mistakes people make
More than one-third of Republican voters, for example, said that people without Covid symptoms could not spread the virus. Similar shares said that Covid was killing fewer people than either the seasonal flu or vehicle crashes. All of those beliefs are wrong, and badly so. Asymptomatic spread is a major source of transmission, and Covid has killed about 15 times more Americans than either the flu or vehicle crashes do in a typical year.Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to exaggerate the severity of Covid. When asked how often Covid patients had to be hospitalized, a very large share of Democratic voters said that at least 20 percent did. The actual hospitalization rate is about 1 percent.
By The New York Times | Source: Franklin Templeton-Gallup Economics of Recovery Study
Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.It’s true that some of these misperceptions reflect the fact that most people are not epidemiologists and that estimating medical statistics is difficult. Still, the errors do have a connection to real-world behavior, Rothwell told me.
Republicans’ underestimation of Covid risks helps explain their resistance to wearing a mask — even though doing so could save their own life or that of a family member. And Democrats’ overestimation of risks explains why so many have accepted school closures — despite the damage being done to children, in lost learning, lost social connections and, in the case of poorer children, missed meals.
The states with the highest share of closed schools are all blue states: California, Oregon, Maryland, New Mexico, Hawaii, Nevada, Massachusetts and New Jersey. “I think in many ways it’s based on the fact that these voters are misinformed about the risks to young people and they’re misinformed about the risks generally,” Rothwell said.
COVID-19 Reinfection: More Common Than We Think? – MedPage
“Relatively alarming” study casts doubt on herd immunity developing from natural infection alone.
Older people appeared especially susceptible to COVID-19 reinfection, but neither sex nor time since previous infection made a difference in risk, a large population-based study in Denmark found.
An analysis examining data by age, sex, and time since last infection found adults ages 65 and older had 47.1% observed protection against reinfection (95% CI 24.7-62.8), reported Steen Ethelberg, PhD, of Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, and colleagues.
Overall observed protection against reinfection in the general population was 80.5% (95% CI 75.4%-84.5%) when comparing PCR test results from the first and second surge, the authors wrote in The Lancet.
SARS-CoV-2 reinfections are rare, with only a handful of cases reported globally, as well as prior evidence suggesting immunity generally lasts up to 5-6 months following infection.
In Denmark, adults were able to get free PCR testing starting in May 2020, and this expanded to everyone age 2 and older in September 2020, for a total of more than 10 million PCR tests on almost 4 million uniquely identifiable individuals by the end of December.
The authors first analyzed infection rates from two time points to approximately the spring and fall COVID-19 surges in Denmark. The first surge was prior to June 2020, where over 533,000 people were tested. Of those, 2.2% tested positive.
European regulator says AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine is ‘safe and effective’ but link to rare blood clots cannot be ruled out – Washington Post
Europe’s medical regulator said Thursday that it believed AstraZeneca’s vaccine was “safe and effective,” but it could not rule out a link to highly unusual types of blood clots and said a warning would be added to the product.
Countries in Europe that have paused the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Norway and Denmark, have been waiting on the European Medicines Agency’s recommendations on how to proceed.
“If it was me, I would be vaccinated tomorrow,” said Emer Cooke, the head of the agency. “But I would want to know if anything happened to me after vaccination, what I should do about it, and that’s what we’re saying today.”
In addition to the warning, the agency said it would conduct outreach to health-care providers and the public about the signs and symptoms to watch for.
… Norwegian experts said Thursday that their investigations into three cases of unusual clots among health workers there, one of whom died, found they were likely caused by an immune response to the vaccine.
Even with the European regulator reiterating that the benefits far outweigh the risks, experts say the damage has been done, with trust in the vaccine already diminished. The pause comes as several European countries warn they are at the beginning of a third wave of the pandemic, with an already slow pace of vaccinations and new more contagious variants spreading rapidly.
… AstraZeneca has said that the 37 blood clotting incidents reported among the 17 million shots given in Europe are far lower than to be expected in the normal population, and the World Health Organization has said it continues to think that the benefits outweigh the risks.
[editor’s note: note that there is still no agreement on AstraZeneca vaccine safety: some health officials say the blood clots are occurring more frequently and with atypical presentations, while others aren’t sure. Symptoms seen in at least 13 patients, all between ages 20 and 50 and previously healthy, in at least five countries are more frequent than would be expected by chance. The patients, at least seven of whom have died, suffer from widespread blood clots, low platelet counts, and internal bleeding—not typical strokes or blood clots. “It’s a very special picture” of symptoms, says Steinar Madsen, medical director of the Norwegian Medicines Agency. “Our leading hematologist said he had never seen anything quite like it.” A somewhat similar blood disorder, called immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), has been seen in at least 36 people in the United States who had received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against COVID-19, The New York Times recently reported. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it was investigating these cases, but also said the syndrome did not appear to be more common in vaccinated people, and immunizations in the United States have continued. But Madsen says the cases seen in Europe in recent weeks are distinct from ITP, which lacks the widespread blood clots seen in the European patients.]
Biden to send surplus AstraZeneca vaccine doses to Mexico, Canada – The Hill
President Biden’s administration plans to send millions of doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico and Canada, the White House confirmed Thursday, a development that comes as the U.S. faces a surge of migrants at the southern border with Mexico.
Press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the plans, which were first reported by Reuters and The Washington Post, but said that they were not yet finalized.
“Our first priority remains vaccinating the U.S. population, but the reality is the pandemic knows no borders,” Psaki told reporters. “Ensuring our neighbors can contain the virus is mission critical to ending the pandemic.”
Psaki said that officials are working to finalize plans to give Mexico 2.5 million doses and give Canada 1.5 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has not yet been approved in the United States. She said that the U.S. has 7 million “releasable” doses of AstraZeneca vaccine in total and suggested the administration could share extras with other countries in the future.
Will fiscal stimulus force the Fed to pump the brakes? – The Conference Board
While the recently passed $1.9 trillion fiscal support package will undoubtedly help the US economy recover more rapidly from the COVID-19 pandemic than would otherwise have been the case, many fear that it will also result in a surge in inflation that complicates the Federal Reserve’s extremely accommodative monetary policy stance. These concerns are likely overdone.
While The Conference Board expects the new fiscal package to accelerate US real GDP growth to 5.5 percent year-on-year in 2021, other forecasters project the expansion could be as high as 6 to 7 percent. According to our analysis of these varying growth scenarios, it is unlikely that sustained inflation will rise to the rates needed to derail the Fed’s easy monetary policy guidance. At 5.5 percent GDP growth, the core PCE deflator—which the Federal Reserve uses to help guide US monetary policy—might be sustained at 2.2 percent year-on-year for several quarters before slowing, and at 7 percent GDP growth the core PCE deflator may peak at just 2.4 percent. These varying growth and inflation outcomes are unlikely to change Fed policy in a recovery environment; however, especially if unemployment rates have more room to fall, and the output gap—the difference between actual and potential GDP—remains wide for several years to come.
Is This Inhaler Effective for Respiratory Viruses? – Mercola
- Researchers conducted a randomized trial to determine if budesonide, when used early during COVID-19 infection, would improve outcomes
- Inhaled budesonide lowered the relative risk of needing urgent care or hospitalization by 90% over 28 days, while also resolving fever and other symptoms faster and leading to fewer persistent symptoms during the study period
- Those taking budesonide recovered one day sooner than those who didn’t; persistent symptoms were also lower in the inhaler group at both 14 and 28 days compared to the usual care group
- Studies in-vitro have previously shown that such inhalers reduce the replication of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in airway epithelial cells
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted marketing authorization of the BioFire Respiratory Panel 2.1 (RP2.1), a diagnostic test for the simultaneous qualitative detection and identification of multiple respiratory viral and bacterial nucleic acids in nasopharyngeal swabs (NPS) obtained from individuals suspected of COVID-19 and other respiratory tract infections. The diagnostic test, which had an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), was granted marketing authorization using the De Novo premarket review pathway, a regulatory pathway for low- to moderate-risk devices of a new type. The grant of this De Novo request marks an important step in FDA’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic because it is the first SARS-CoV-2 diagnostic test that will be permitted to be marketed beyond the public health emergency.
“Today’s action is a great demonstration of the FDA’s work to protect the public health in emergency response situations and beyond,” said FDA Acting Commissioner Janet Woodcock, M.D. “We ensured there were tests made available quickly under EUA; and we continue to work with diagnostic manufacturers to take the next step of ensuring products are FDA reviewed for safety and effectiveness and authorized for marketing under our traditional premarket authorities. While this is the first marketing authorization for a diagnostic test using a traditional premarket review process, we do not expect this to be the last and look forward to working with developers of medical products to move their products through our traditional review pathways.”
Fauci clashes with Rand Paul over masks – The Hill
[editor’s note: I fall on the Dr. Fauci side of the mask-wearing argument even though Senator Paul may be correct. As I continue to say – most of what we know about COVID lacks scientific proof, is a conservative approach without scientific validation, or is simply an extrapolation of facts]
The nation’s top infectious diseases doctor Anthony Fauci on Thursday clashed with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) over the need for people to continue wearing masks once they’ve already been infected with or vaccinated against COVID-19.
“You’re telling everyone to wear a mask,” Paul said. “If we’re not spreading the infection, isn’t it just theater? You have the vaccine and you’re wearing two masks, isn’t that theater?”
“Here we go again with the theater,” an exasperated Fauci responded. “Let’s get down to the facts.”
Paul, who was infected with COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic last March, has said he is immune to future infection. As a result, he refuses to wear a mask in the Capitol and has declared he does not need to be vaccinated.
Paul argued there are no studies that show significant reinfection among people who have recovered from the virus or after vaccination.
“I agree with you, that you very likely would have protection from wild type for at least six months if you’re infected,” Fauci said, but pointed out there is no protection from some of the more infectious variants, like the one one first found in South Africa. The variants are a “good reason for a mask.”
“You’re making policy based on conjecture!” Paul said, talking over Fauci and accusing him of wanting people to wear masks “for another couple of years.”
“You’ve been vaccinated and you parade around in two masks for show,” Paul continued. “If you already have immunity, you’re wearing a mask to give comfort to others. You’re not wearing a mask because of any science.”
[additional editor’s note: please read the next three items]
Study: Repeat COVID-19 infections rare, but protection not reliable – The Hill
People who have recovered from a COVID-19 infection are likely to be protected from reinfection for at least six months, but according to a study published Wednesday, that protection drops dramatically for people over the age of 65.
The study, which was published in The Lancet, found protection in the general population to be 80 percent or higher in those younger than 65, but approximately 47 percent in those aged 65 years and older, meaning they were more likely to be infected again.
The study found that among people under age 65 who had COVID-19 during the first wave, between March and May 2020, only 72 out of more than 11,000 tested positive again during the second wave from September to December 2020.
The infection rate during the second wave was five times higher for people who tested negative during the first wave.
For people over age 65, the numbers were slightly higher, with 17 out of 1,931 testing positive twice. The study found 2 percent of people over age 65 who tested negative in the first wave subsequently tested positive during the second wave.
The authors found no evidence that protection against repeat infection was waning after six months of follow-up, but because COVID-19 was only discovered in December 2019, they said longer-term studies are needed.
Vaccines alone may not be enough to end pandemic – EurekAlert
Even as vaccines are becoming more readily available in the U.S., protecting against the asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread of the virus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19 is key to ending the pandemic, say two Georgetown infectious disease experts.
In their Perspective, “SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Without Symptoms” published March 18 in the journal Science, Angela L. Rasmussen, PhD, and Saskia V. Popescu, PhD, MA, faculty affiliates of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center, make the case that symptomless transmission silently drives viral spread and is key to ending the pandemic.
“Determining the true transmission capability of asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic cases is inherently complex, but knowledge gaps should not detract from acknowledging their role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2,” the authors write.
“We can’t rely on vaccination alone to control the pandemic,” says Rasmussen. “Vaccines are great for protecting people against disease, but we don’t yet know how well they work to protect against transmission.”
Rasmussen says that from a biological perspective, it would be unlikely that a vaccine that protects well against disease would not protect against infection. “But just like the vaccines don’t offer a hundred percent protection against getting sick, they also aren’t a hundred percent likely to protect against transmission.”
In addition, while vaccines reportedly will become widely available in the U.S. by summer, that is not the case in the rest of the world where the pandemic continues unabated.
“Asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission poses a unique challenge for public health and infection prevention mitigation efforts,” says Popescu. “Ultimately this is something we will need to continuously keep our eye on as we move into the next phase of the COVID-19 pandemic and a reduction of disease due to vaccinations.”
Multiple Variants Can ‘Escape’ Vaccines – Medscape
Antibodies induced by the Moderna Inc and Pfizer Inc/BioNTech vaccines are dramatically less effective at neutralizing some of the most worrying coronavirus variants, a new study suggests.
Researchers obtained blood samples from 99 individuals who had received one or two doses of either vaccine and tested their vaccine-induced antibodies against virus replicas engineered to mimic 10 globally circulating variants.
Five of the 10 variants were “highly resistant to neutralization,” even when volunteers had received both doses of the vaccines, the researchers reported in Cell. All five highly resistant variants had mutations in the spike on the virus surface – known as K417N/T, E484K, and N501Y – that characterize a variant rampant in South Africa and two variants spreading rapidly in Brazil.
In keeping with previous studies, the proportion of neutralizing antibodies dropped 5- to 6-fold against the variants discovered in Brazil. Against the variant discovered in South Africa, neutralization fell 20- to 44-fold.
A variant circulating now in New York has the E484K mutation. “While studies of the New York variant are ongoing, our findings suggest that similar variants harboring E484K may be harder for vaccine-induced antibodies to neutralize,” study leader Alejandro Balazs of Harvard University and the Massachusetts General Hospital told Reuters.
“Despite our results,” he added, “it’s important to consider that vaccines raise other kinds of immune responses which could protect against developing severe disease.”
“We encourage very strongly – as with any vaccine – that there is a documentation, whether this is paper-based or preferably digital. And that’s why WHO is working on a smart digital certificate,” Kluge said during a news conference Thursday.
“But this is something different than a passport. We do not encourage at this stage that getting a vaccination is the determining whether you can travel internationally or not. It should not be a requirement,” Kluge said.
Kluge cited several reasons for the distinction:
- First, an ethical one: “There is a global shortage of vaccines. So this would increase the inequities, and if there’s one thing that we learned from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that the vulnerable people got hit disproportionally.”
- Second, he said, there is scientific reason: “We are not sure yet how long the immunity lasts.” And, he said, people who have been vaccinated may still be able to transmit the infection.
- Third, there is a “practical reason.” Kluge said that, as WHO is working within an “international trusted framework, we have to document whether people got the vaccine.”
Kluge’s comments come a day after the European Commission unveiled its proposal for a “Digital Green Certificate,” or vaccine passport, to allow for safe and free movement within the EU during the pandemic.
The following are foreign headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
New infections are dropping in the U.S. and Mexico, but the patterns in Canada, Brazil, and other Western Hemisphere nations are troubling, the Pan American Health Organization warned.
European Union officials float the idea of issuing “Digital Green Certificates” for residents to travel freely between member nations if they have been vaccinated, tested negative for COVID-19, or recovered from the disease. And this Los Angeles-based company wants to do likewise in the U.S.
Brazil Hits COVID Record of Over 90k New Cases
Greece Calls for Volunteer Doctors to Help State Hospitals With COVID-19
Finland reports highest weekly number of new Covid-19 cases since start of pandemic
France will impose new Covid-19 restrictions starting Friday
Europe’s vaccine rollout is too slow, the W.H.O. says.
South Korea comes under criticism for a plan to test all foreign workers in Seoul for the virus.
Italy and Cyprus will resume use of AstraZeneca vaccine Friday
Boris Johnson says he’ll receive AstraZeneca’s vaccine tomorrow
Turkey records its highest daily coronavirus caseload this year
Spain to resume use of AstraZeneca vaccine next Wednesday
The following additional national and state headlines with hyperlinks to the posts
Some pockets of U.S. are making vaccines available to all — in part because of a lack of demand
A majority of people who recover from Covid remain shielded from the virus for at least six months, a study found.
Americans will have until May 17 to file their federal taxes because of the pandemic.
Will work from home outlast virus? Ford’s move suggests yes
Stimulus Addiction Disorder: The Debt-Disposable Earnings Pyramid
Schools opened last August in Florida and have yet to be linked to major outbreaks.
A Chicago hospital executive backtracked on his claim that he vaccinated Eric Trump after the ensuing backlash over Trump’s eligibility at the time.
White House Announces $10 Billion For COVID-19 Testing In Schools
Study shows parents, kids in virtual learning suffered more stress
Fauci: CDC likely to shorten distancing guidance for schools
CDC expected to update its physical distancing guidelines for schools tomorrow
Minnesota governor to quarantine following COVID-19 exposure
A new study by Novateur Ventures provides global analysis of COVID-19 vaccines
Why Getting the COVID Vaccine Doesn’t Make You Contagious to Others
The U.S. government says it will reimburse families of Covid-19 victims for funeral expenses incurred after Jan. 20, 2020. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, best known for responding to hurricanes, floods and wildfires, said on Wednesday that it aimed to ease some of the financial stress caused by the coronavirus and that it would start reimbursing people next month.
US CDC wants to scale up search for new coronavirus variants, director says
AMC Theatres will have 98% of their US locations open tomorrow
New York City mayor gets the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
Today’s Posts On Econintersect Showing Impact Of The Pandemic With Hyperlinks
13 March 2021 New York Fed Weekly Economic Index (WEI): Index Marginally Declined This Week
March 2021 Philly Fed Manufacturing Survey Index Index Hits 50-Year High
13 March 2021 Initial Unemployment Claims Rolling Average Improves Again
How Have COVID-19 Vaccinations Progressed In Asia?
How Do MRNA Vaccines Work And Why Do You Need A Second Dose? 5 Essential Reads
Warning to Readers
The amount of politically biased articles on the internet continues to increase. And studies and opinions of the experts continue to contradict other studies and expert opinions. Honestly, it is difficult to believe anything anymore.
I assemble this coronavirus update daily – sifting through the posts on the internet. I try to avoid politically slanted posts (mostly from CNN, New York Times, and the Washington Post) and can usually find unslanted posts on that subject from other sources on the internet. I wait to publish posts on subjects that I cannot validate across several sources. But after all this extra work, I do not know if I have conveyed the REAL facts. It is my job to provide information so that you have the facts necessary – and then it is up to readers to draw conclusions.
Analyst Opinion of Coronavirus Data
There are several takeaways that need to be understood when viewing coronavirus statistical data:
- The global counts are suspect for a variety of reasons including political. Even the U.S. count has issues as it is possible that as much as half the population has had coronavirus and was asymptomatic. It would be a far better metric using a random sampling of the population weekly. In short, we do not understand the size of the error in the tracking numbers.
- Just because some of the methodology used in aggregating the data in the U.S. is flawed – as long as the flaw is uniformly applied – you establish a baseline. This is why it is dangerous to compare two countries as they likely use different methodologies to determine who has (and who died) from coronavirus.
- COVID-19 and the flu are different but can have similar symptoms. For sure, COVID-19 so far is much more deadly than the flu. [click here to compare symptoms]
- From an industrial engineering point of view, one can argue that it is best to flatten the curve only to the point that the health care system is barely able to cope. This solution only works if-and-only-if one can catch this coronavirus once and develops immunity. In the case of COVID-19, herd immunity may need to be in the 80% to 85% range. WHO warns that few have developed antibodies to COVID-19 when recovering from COVID-19. Herd immunity does not look like an option without immunization although there is now a discussion of whether T-Cells play a part in immunity [which means one might have immunity without antibodies]
- Older population countries will have a significantly higher death rate as there is relatively few hospitalizations and deaths in younger age groups..
- There are at least 8 strains of the coronavirus. California and New York may have a deadlier strain imported from Europe, compared to less deadly viruses elsewhere in the United States.
- Each publication uses different cutoff times for its coronavirus statistics. Our data uses 11:00 am London time. Also, there is an unexplained variation in the total numbers both globally and in the U.S.
What we do or do not know about the coronavirus [actually there is little scientifically proven information]. Most of our knowledge is anecdotal, from studies with limited subjects, or from studies without peer review.
- How many people have been infected as many do not show symptoms?
- Masks do work. Unfortunately, early in the pandemic, many health experts — in the U.S. and around the world — decided that the public could not be trusted to hear the truth about masks. Instead, the experts spread a misleading message, discouraging the use of masks.
- Current thinking is that we develop at least 5 months of immunity from further COVID infection.
- The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have an effectiveness rate of about 95 percent after two doses. That is on par with the vaccines for chickenpox and measles. The 95 percent number understates the effectivenessas it counts anyone who came down with a mild case of Covid-19 as a failure. But turning Covid into a typical flu — as the vaccines evidently did for most of the remaining 5 percent — is actually a success. Of the 32,000 people who received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine in a research trial, only one contracted a severe Covid case.
- To what degree do people who never develop symptoms contribute to transmission? Research early in the pandemic suggested that the rate of asymptomatic infections could be as high as 81%. But a meta-analysis, which included 13 studies involving 21,708 people, calculated the rate of asymptomatic presentation to be 17%.
- The accuracy of rapid testing is questioned – and the more accurate test results are not being given in a timely manner.
- Can children widely spread coronavirus? [current thinking is that they are a minor source of the pandemic spread]
- Why have some places avoided big coronavirus outbreaks – and others hit hard?
- Air conditioning contributes to the pandemic spread.
- It appears that there is increased risk of infection and mortality for those living in larger occupancy households.
- Male patients have almost three times the odds of requiring intensive treatment unit (ITU) admission compared to females.
- Outdoor activities seem to be a lower risk than indoor activities.
Treatments with solid scientific support:
- Dexamethasone
- Proning, or turning someone on their stomach
- Remdesivir
- Baricitinib
Treatments with potential but limited evidence:
- ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation
- fluvoxamine
- Cyclosporine
- Famotidine
- Intravenous immunoglobulin
- Ivermectin
- Interferons
Drugs shown to be ineffective:
- The combination of lopinavir-ritonavir
- Hydroxychloroquine
- Insulin
- High dose zinc and vitamin C
- Convalescent plasma
- Monoclonal antibodies
- Tocilizumab
- Anti-coagulants
- A current scientific understanding of the way the coronavirus works can be found [here].
There is now a vaccine available – the questions remain:
- will there be any permanent side effects that will appear months from now,
- how long immunity will last [we can currently say we do not know if it will last more than 4 months],
- there is no solid evidence yet the vaccine will block transmission
Heavy breakouts of coronavirus have hit farmworkers. Farmworkers are essential to the food supply. They cannot shelter at home. Consider:
- they have high rates of respiratory disease [occupational hazard]
- they travel on crowded buses chartered by their employers
- few have health insurance
- they cannot social distance and live two to four to a room – and they eat together
- some reports say half are undocumented
- they are low paid and cannot afford not to work – so they will go to work sick
- they do not have access to sanitation when working
- a coronavirus outbreak among farmworkers can potentially shutter entire farm
The bottom line is that COVID-19 so far has been shown to be much more deadly than the data on the flu. Using CDC data, the flu has a mortality rate between 0.06 % and 0.11 % Vs. the coronavirus which to date has a mortality rate of 4 % [the 4% is the average of overall statistics – however in the last few months it has been hovering around 1.0%] – which makes it between 10 and 80 times more deadly. The reason for ranges:
Because influenza surveillance does not capture all cases of flu that occur in the U.S., CDC provides these estimated ranges to better reflect the larger burden of influenza.
There will be a commission set up after this pandemic ends to find fault [it is easy to find fault when a once-in-a-lifetime event occurs] and to produce recommendations for the next time a pandemic happens. Those that hate President Trump will conclude the virus is his fault.
Resources:
- Get the latest public health information from CDC: https://www.coronavirus.gov .
- Get the latest research from NIH: https://www.nih.gov/coronavirus.
- Find NCBI SARS-CoV-2 literature, sequence, and clinical content: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sars-cov-2/.
- List of studies: https://icite.od.nih.gov/covid19/search/#search:searchId=5ee124ed70bb967c49672dad
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